Stephenson Post No. 30 Gar Banner Springfield Ill

Stellar Framed Fringed banner of the Stephenson Post, No. 30 G.A.R. of Springfield Illinois measuring 26 X 22 inches Made of midnight blue silk and has been completely hand painted with gold paint with black accents. This is a very early Post flag from the 1870's or 1880's and in excellent condition. Stephenson Post No. 30 was the dominant local branch of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) in Springfield, Illinois, named in honor of G.A.R. founder Dr. Benjamin Franklin Stephenson. Named for Founder: Honored Dr. Benjamin Franklin Stephenson, a Union Army surgeon from Springfield who established the first G.A.R. post in Decatur, IL Community Hub: Served as the main fraternal and social organization for local American Civil War Union veterans in Sangamon County. Somewhere in Mississippi in early 1864, two comrades in the 14th Illinois Volunteer Infantry agreed that, when the Civil War was over, Union Army soldiers ought to organize “some form of association to preserve the friendships and memories of their common dangers.”Two years later, those two friends and a dozen other Union veterans created an outline for the Grand Army of the Republic, which ultimately would enroll nearly a half-million former soldiers and influence national policy and politics for decades. According to later reminiscences, the Rev. William J. Rutledge (1820-1900) of Jacksonville, a chaplain in the 14th, first suggested the idea of a veterans organization to his friend, Major Benjamin F. Stephenson (1823-71), a regimental surgeon, during Gen. William T. Sherman’s march toward Meridian, Miss. in February 1864. Back in Illinois in 1866, Stephenson took the lead in forming the GAR. Stephenson, born in Wayne County, grew up in the Rock Creek area of Menard County. After attending Rush Medical College in Chicago, he practiced medicine in Petersburg until the war began and he volunteered to join the central Illinois-based 14th Infantry. The 14th, attached to the western commands of U.S. Grant and then Sherman, unquestionably needed able physicians. The regiment lost half its complement during the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, then went on to participate in the sieges of Corinth and Vicksburg, Miss., among other engagements. The battered 14th was reorganized in 1864, and Stephenson was mustered out about the same time. Stephenson moved to Springfield after his army service, and he and Rutledge continued their discussions of a possible veterans group. Stephenson apparently began sharing his ideas with a number of other ex-soldiers in late 1865, and the plans came to a head when he, Rutledge and some others gathered in Springfield in March 1866. The Illinois State Journal recounted the founding of the GAR in an article in September 1940, when the GAR held one of its last national encampments in Springfield. Major Stephenson became engaged in the drug business at the close of his service and later resumed his practice of medicine. But his thoughts of comrades, their future, and their organization for fraternity, charity, and loyalty, largely crowded out his thoughts of business and professional matters. Consequently, in March 1866, Major Stephenson met with Chaplain Rutledge in this city to formulate a ritual for the proposed order. Other comrades were drawn into conferences concerning the soon to be G.A.R. and a lively interest was created. …Meetings were first held in the offices of Doctors Allen and Hamilton, associates of Doctor Stephenson, and afterwards in the office of Col. John M. Snyder, then secretary to Governor Oglesby. The name “Grand Army of the Republic” may have been suggested by a similarly named group in Missouri, Robert Beath (himself a former GAR commander-in-chief) wrote in his authoritative History of the Grand Army of the Republic (1889). “There are naturally some differences in the statements of those now surviving, who participated in the preliminary work of the Grand Army of the Republic,” Beath added, “differences occasioned largely by the necessity for relying upon memory, after this lapse of time, for details of matters that did not then seem so important, and of which there are but meagre records.” One area of present-day confusion involves whether the GAR was “founded” in Springfield or Decatur. Indeed, the GAR’s first post was in Decatur. However, the record shows that all the organizational work took place in Springfield. Even the charter for Decatur’s Post 1, which is reproduced in Beath’s book, was signed “Done at Springfield, Illinois, this sixth day of April, 1866 … B.F. Stephenson, Commander of Department”. As Beath explained, Stephenson and his cohorts had spent much of their planning time drawing up a ritual for their association – rituals were vital elements to the myriad fraternal groups that sprang up in the U.S. in the late 19th century, and it was thought important to keep those rituals secret. When the ritual was finally deemed ready for printing, in order that due secrecy might be secured, Go